It only releases the pierce-eyed
detective who
tours the lasting cliffs of tacked
mugshots
across shiny walls and florescent
fatigue
as he joins clues with fat black
sharpies

Spreading the insects’
dissected sentences throughout
the precinct’s inner sanctum
where the manhunt
takes on ritual significance, until
a choreographed dance
along the contours of symbolic
scrawls breaks through the muck

Too often we’re fooled to
think we’ve found
the rare fruit, fantasizing how the
squeezed juice
flits across our animal tongues, in
everlasting
hope-drops that wet our desire for
more

But burns across the perennial red
carpet
igniting the papillae
into crumbling pillars
crushed to sand in night’s
frozen pockets
to sift through time’s ticking
fingers

As we reminisce how sweet
the other’s flesh tasted
when the buds still stood supple and
guilt free
while we thrilled your way out of
Eden

Starved and always aching for the
fruit we stole
forgetting that freedom’s crop
lies in the
spit-in-the-palm deal between hunter
and hunted
to go at it together – to tend
that garden for all

Eric
G. Muller teaches literature and drama at the Hawthorne Valley High
School in New York. He is a founding member of the Alkion Center and
the director of the education department. He has written two novels,
Rites of Rock (Adonis Press 2005) and Meet Me at the Met (Plain View
Press, 2010), as well as a collection of poetry, Coffee on the Piano
for You (Adonis Press, 2008). Poetry, articles and short stories have
appeared in various journals, anthologies and magazines.
www.ericmuller.com